'Squid Game' Season 2 Ending, Explained

WARNING! This article spoils the events of Squid Game Season 2, now available for streaming on Netflix. Please do not read further if you do not intend to know what happens in Season 2.

One of the biggest hits in Netflix history, Squid Game appeared onto the scene in the fall of 2021. It sported a colorful cast of characters built into the macabre concept of playing children’s games in a literal game of life or death for an immense amount of money. In the process, we fall in love with the various people in soul-crushing death, only to get our hearts ripped out as the titular games take them all out. In the end of Season 1, there is only one sole survivor: Seong Gi-hun (Emmy winner Lee Jung-jae).

But Gi-hun wasn’t done with Squid Game, and neither are we. Season 2 debuted with a batch of seven episodes on Dec. 26, three years after the first. We were taken through Gi-hun’s return to the games, with a cast of new faces, familiar faces, and faces that are familiar to us, but perhaps new to certain characters. And, while we won’t have to wait long until the third and final season, fans were left in the lurch with quite a number of characters’ fates up in the air.

Here’s everything that went down in the ending of Squid Game Season 2, and what to look forward to when the series returns.

Related: Everything to Know About Squid Game Season 2

Squid Game Season 2 Ending Explained

Player 456 has returned

Season 2 of Squid Game picks right back from where Season 1 left off, with Gi-hun choosing not to get on a plane to America, joining his estranged daughter and leaving the games behind. Instead, he spends the next two years using his bottomless winnings to fund a massive operation to find the island-based location of the games. When he’s put in front of the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) on Halloween Night, Gi-hun decides to put himself back in the fray, vowing to the new boss, “I’ll show you the world doesn’t always go the way you want it to.”

Indeed, Gi-hun is gassed and put back in the familiar 456 jumpsuit. The concept of the games have not changed in the past three years since he last played. Win the game each round, keep going. Lose a game, get killed and add 1 billion won to the winner’s pot. But the similarities stop there. Not only does Squid Game Season introduce a couple of flashy new games, but also a major voting mechanic (just in time for those still recovering from election fatigue). 

After every game, the remaining players would vote as to whether to continue, or terminate the games (like we saw being invoked in the second episode of the series). If the majority voted to end the game, not only would they cease, but each player would go home with their share of the prize pool. Each time those people stepped forward in front of those flashy X and O buttons, they were weighing out just how far they would go, whether they would put their necks on the line–and the necks of many others–for the chance at a bigger piece of the pie.

Gi-hun storms the castle, and loses

Of course, it’s not surprising to see tensions brew to a breaking point by the finale of Squid Game Season 2. After an overwhelming majority voted to continue, last time, the vote gets tied 50-50, prompting a revote the next day. But as soon as Gi-hun sees they were given forks and glass bottles for dinner, he knows what’s coming. While he hasn’t benefited from his previous experience as much as he thought, he knows that, when given the incentive to thin out the herd, people will take it to the extreme.

That indeed plays out in several bloody skirmishes across the last two episodes of Season 2. A bathroom bout takes out antagonist Player 230, AKA “Thanos” (Choi Seung-hyun), putting everyone on edge. That night, the “O” players mount an all-out assault on their opposition, slaughtering them in their beds. As gruesome of a sight it is, Gi-hun and his allies hold strong, hidden away, waiting to make their move.

Despite losing the plot on wanting to show the good in people, Gi-hun decides the only way to break the games is to do so by force. As the masked workers charge in to break up the fight, the players take advantage, slaughtering them and taking their weapons. Gi-hun leads a motley crew, including his friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan), fellow Marine Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul), former Sergeant Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), and one of his closest allies inside the dorms, “Il-nik.” 

Using the commandeered weapons, and the vast amounts of military experience in their midst, the group is able to make their way through the colorful labyrinths of the backstage area and up near the control room. At last, Gi-hun can come face-to-face with the Front Man, ending these games once and for all. Of course, being there’s still one more season, it doesn’t go well.

That’s because Gi-hun has been sleeping with the enemy the entire time. The Front Man, much like his predecessor, decided to insert himself into the games as Player 001. It’s been an interesting seasonlong character study, as we know he is also a previous winner. Despite perhaps some intense moments, 001 always showed his loyalty to Gi-hun. But, just when he needed him most, he took off the mask by (ironically) putting it on. 

The ragtag revolution by the players is squashed. The masked workers take charge of the dorms once more, with Dae-ho and Hyun-ju back with the other players who stayed behind. Everyone else is shot down, including some friendly fire exchanged when the Front Man kills two of them himself (then proceeds to fake his own death to Gi-hun). He then trades the jumpsuit for his familiar black hood, approaching a surrendering Gi-hun and Jung-bae.

“Did you have fun playing the hero?” he taunts Gi-hun. “Look closely at the consequences of your little hero game.” With that, he shoots and kills Jung-bae. Gi-hun is restrained, devastated and wailing as he lies across from his fallen friend. The games will continue, and while Gi-hun has lost this round, he has survived. But many have not.

Related: Squid Game Creator Reveals the Main Reason He Decided to Make Season 2

Getting to know No-eul

One of the first big swerves of Squid Game Season 2 came in its second episode. We’re introduced to a new character, No-eul (Park Gyu-young), a refugee from North Korea who is seeking to find the child she left behind when crossing the border. Initially, when we see her with a familiar card, we assume she’ll be one of our new players. But things take a delicious twist when she gets on a truck, zips up a pink jumpsuit, and dons a triangle mask.

No-eul has been one of the soldiers in the games for years. Brought in initially under the promise of “helping those who feel hopeless by putting them out of their misery,” No-eul’s career stability has come to a head with the re-emergence of other works trying to sell organs of the dead players on the black market. At different points in the season, she takes no mercy in snuffing out wounded players, stymieing those who are trying to keep them alive as long as possible for better market value. Things build to a point where No-eul is unmasked and threatened in her own quarters, left with a cut on her face as a warning to stay out of their business.

Despite her cold demeanor, No-eul does have a soft spot in the games. Before suiting up, she had worked as a costumed character. During her job, she had a close bond with an incredibly ill little girl, who needs costly surgery to survive. And so the girl’s father entered himself in the games as Player 246, hoping to win those funds to keep his child alive. Unfortunately, he is part of Gi-hun’s player revolution, and seems to get cornered and shot by the soldiers. However, given No-eul’s penchant for mercy kills, it would be a perfectly fitting piece of irony if she only maimed him to fake his death, in the hopes of saving his life.

Jun-ho’s investigation goes off a cliff

One of the few returning characters from Squid Game Season 1 is Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon). After a happenchance meeting with Gi-hun last season, Jun-ho snuck his way into the games, in the hopes of finding his lost brother In-ho. Disguising himself as a worker, he experiences firsthand the organ selling, as well as the hedonistic characters of the “VIPs.” And he learns a heap of information.

Yes, his brother was a previous participant in the games, and was a winner. When Jun-ho’s identity is revealed, he gets cornered at the edge of a cliff, where the Front Man reveals that he is Jun-ho’s brother. While In-ho shot him, sending him off to his certain doom, he was saved from the sea off-camera, rescued by Captain Park (Oh Dal-su).

Much like Gi-hun, once Jun-ho came out of his coma, he’s been focused non-stop on finding the island. His two-year efforts had come up short, until he met Gi-hun and struck up a partnership. When Gi-hun went to the island, Jun-ho recruited Captain Park and a series of heavies to try to find it–and his brother–once and for all. But Season 2 ends on a frustrating note for Jun-ho, as he finds every hope of a lead giving way to a dead end.

Perhaps that might be because there’s a saboteur in their midst. Despite being Jun-ho’s savior, right now, Captain Park is spurning his best efforts. As the group awaits resuming their work through the night, someone catches the captain bugging his drone. After being caught, the captain kills the man, stabbing him and throwing him overboard. It’s unknown if Park is working directly for the Front Man, and whether that was always the case. But Jun-ho’s chances of survival might be, for lack of a better term, out at sea.

The next round will begin

With Gi-hun caught, and many of the “X” players killed, it’s safe to say that the chances of the games ending have been terminated. With that, we do get a sneak peek of a couple of images at the end of the Season 2 finale. The giant doll used in the initial “Red Light, Green Light” game is back, and the players are in for double the fun with a boy statue to join her. There also seems to be a railroad light-like device that flashes between red and green.

Will this version be used in a flashback, perhaps showing how the Front Man was able to win his games? Or is it just a more intense reprise for our current players? And where does that leave the fate of our other characters, like mother and son Yong-sik and Gyeong-seok (Yang Dong-geun and Lee Jin-wook), or exes Kim Jun-hee and Lee Myung-gi (Jo Yu-ri and Im Si-wan)? Luckily, we won’t have to wait very long in 2025 to see what’s next behind those menacing sliding doors.

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